Market Monday…er Tuesday (and 200th Post Giveaway!)

Forgive my Market Tuesday post. I had some technical difficulties and didn’t want to wait until next week!

Happy Independence Day to you, and Happy 200th Post to me!

I’m here to break my unintentional two-week blogging hiatus. My summer job scoring writing tests will be over tomorrow morning, and I did not anticipate the amount of time it would take up. I am so looking forward to Wednesday, and making some headway on those projects I wrote about last month.

Two weekends ago, I didn’t make it to a farmers’ market. Dexter’s family had a reunion at his mom’s place, so although we didn’t make it to a market, we did spend a day ingesting cake pops, apple cake, and even a s’mores pie topped with bacon. (Dexter’s family is serious about desserts. Entire tables are devoted to desserts at their gatherings–the meal-like foods are just a ruse in case any “outsiders” make it in to the reunion.)

Dexter got to meet (for the first time as an adult, anyway) his great-uncle Bernie. We discovered that Bernie’s vocation was graphic design and that he still sketches daily to keep his skills sharp. (Really, “sketch” seems like a silly word. He makes amazing color drawings and even takes a portfolio filled with fancy pencils and other drawing tools with him wherever he goes.) It was cool to find out that Dexter’s artistic interests could be a genetic echo of Uncle Bernie’s skills.

Fast forward to this weekend–I made it to the farmers’ market!

We bought some delicious iced coffee from Capanna (not that we’re biased) and apple cider doughnuts, which are our incentive to get out of bed early on Saturday mornings when we forget that we really do like the vegetables enough to get up early to buy them.

From our CSA, we got a dozen eggs, a bunch of turnips, several very dirty farm-fresh-looking potatoes, two heads of red romaine, a cabbage, and two heads of garlic. We also stopped at a mushroom stand and bought a carton of portobellos.

Two weeks ago, I cooked up a storm every night. We ate delicious, balanced meals, and I was constantly exhausted from trying to clean the kitchen. Last week, we were so busy I barely cooked. When our schedule slowed down, however, my desire to get in the kitchen didn’t come back. Dexter made oatmeal raisin pancakes and eggs on Friday night. Then, he made crepes filled with farmers’ market portobellos, potatoes, and turnips for dinner on Saturday night. They were delicious, and I was glad to get to run instead of cook. Dexter is the things-made-with-eggs master around here.

Since then, I have cooked, and it has been okay, but I’m still not excited about it. I do have a plan to use what remains of our farmers’ market finds. We’ll grill the potatoes tonight and serve them alongside the coleslaw I’ll make with our cabbage. The romaine will make lots of salads for side dishes in the evening and lunches for me now that I’ll be home during the day. The garlic will go in just about everything, and we’ve been eating so many eggs that they’re practically gone already!

Now, for the good stuff.

To celebrate my 200th post and in light of my recent controversial, freshly pressed post on Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals, I’ve decided to give away a copy of Eating Animals.

How to Enter:

Leave a comment below telling (or linking to a post where you tell) what you’ll be cooking this week and if you found any of the ingredients at a farmers’ market.

For up to three bonus entries (leave a comment for each), tweet, facebook, or blog about this giveaway.

The giveaway will close on Sunday, July 24 at 11:59 pm CST.

Thanks for reading! Here’s to 200 more posts!